Shared this a number of times in a number of places. What strikes me is the composer’s emphasis on “admirabile sacramentum” (wonderful sacrament) and “animalia” (animals). Where is man in the Latin text? It bears repeating the chromatism of this work lends itself to a tenderness rarely heard. For that reason I’ve provided the link to the UST Alumni Singers’ performance. I might be imagining things, but they seem to have a vocal maturity that younger singers might not always have. I’m not really talking about something technical here.

A related point. Someone asked me earlier what I thought about all the commercialism surrounding the holiday season. I think it was because I was ranting about all the schlocky, bad Christmas music I was hearing everywhere. Must every place sound like an overcrowded mall?  I punted. I didn’t want to continue ranting, not when something different and interesting and thoughtful might be said.

I’m not sure I have anything of the sort at hand. I’m simply thinking “savior” and “redeemer.” In a way, our crass materialism has it exactly right. We need to be saved from ourselves (“redeemed”) and from others (“savior”/”Messiah”). The need for justice and the good is here and now. It is so overpowering it dictates the next life; we can’t have lived in vain. We make our highest desires almost abstract. This is not a bad thing at all. As was pointed out to me repeatedly the last few months, Luke aims at presenting a savior for the world, one not tied to a particular nation or its justice.

But again, we end up at that notion from a very real – particular – hunger for our needs to be met. The coming of Christ is God fulfilling a promise. That alone, independent of how or what it means, is the celebration. Is this simply wishful thinking? Not at all. We’re all giving each other gifts today, whether sacred or secular. The hope is we recognize each other’s need and act accordingly. That was always the godly wish.

Mendelssohn wrote this extremely accessible, charming work at 15. I’ll let the New York Times critic who alerted me to it tell more:

This four-movement piece of nearly 30 minutes is like a concerto for piano and a deferential roster of strings. The music has Mozartean elegance, with early Romantic flourishes. Mendelssohn wrote the piano part to display what was by all reports his remarkable virtuosity. (Anthony Tommasini, “A Sextet from Mendelssohn, Made for Showing Off”)

If you’re pressed for time, the 4th movement is especially good. I don’t quite feel the “pull” some slower movements should have in the Adagio & Menuetto. (I feel like I’m complaining about foie gras). It’s amazing, nonetheless: I couldn’t tie my shoelaces at 15. Hope you enjoy.

Garage Sale. Saturday. I need to pay
My heart’s outstanding bills.
A cracked-up compass and a pocket watch
some plastic daffodils
The cutlery and coffee cups I stole
from all-night restaurants
a sense of wonder (only slightly used)
a year of two to haunt you in the dark

For a phone call from far away
with a “Hi, how are you today”
and a sign recovery comes
to the broken ones.

A wage-slave forty-hour work week weighs
a thousand kilograms,
so bend your knees — comes with a free fake smile
for all your dumb demands,
the cordless razor that my father bought
when I turned 17,
a puke-green sofa and the outline to
a complicated dream of dignity

For a laugh (too loud and too long).
For a place where awkward belongs,
and the sign that recovery comes to the broken ones.
To the broken ones.
To the broken ones.
For the broken ones.

Comment:

You’ll note the official lyrics aren’t the ones actually sung. The same thing happened with “None of the Above”. It was fairly significant for the theme of that song.

Here the imagery stays fairly obvious. “Compass,” “watch” – ways of tracking space and time used, now for sale. “Plastic daffodils” – pleasant and decorative, but not lasting in any genuine way. “Cutlery and coffee cups” – stolen, indicating our speaker hasn’t really had a home. We’re willing to put up with wandering, fakeness and dependence on paid-for hospitality because of wonder. Maybe there’s something better out there. Just gotta keep searching, scratching.

Does wonder create stalkers? Not really, but I don’t want anyone in an adolescent “I love her she’s the best thing I’ve ever found I’ll never find anyone like her again” mode thinking anything less than gentlemanly is ever justified:

a year of two to haunt you in the dark

For a phone call from far away
with a “Hi, how are you today”

“Haunt you in the dark” is not describing a stalker here. This speaker is far away and in his own darkness. This just sounds like how we deal with ex-lovers that are now “friends.” We feel like ghosts in their lives until we’re approached, until we can seriously feel we were something important to them.

Our speaker moves back to the garage sale and how he actually lives. The first sign recovery will come (the phone call) is far off. (I should say that until very recently I was unaware just how much people wanted to hear from their ex, to hear something that wasn’t mere closure but also affirming.) We’re introduced to his job (“wage-slave forty-hour work week”). No surprise, it seems to involve carrying burdens full-time. How can work be a recovery when it is the same as a broken love-life?

The key is the “dream of dignity,” I think. The cordless razor, the awful sofa, the trying to please in both public and private, the bad job: we’re all there or have been there. The “dumb demands” can be every day, including that of the garage sale. But at the garage sale, everything that is our speaker is public. The outline he’s selling is all over the place. Everyone can see what’s up. Weirdly enough, this is his moment. It doesn’t matter if customers make dumb demands. He’s in charge.

That’s the ultimate sign recovery comes. The laugh, the awkwardness – that’s how it’s always going to be after a broken relationship. How we’re trying to explain her and not explain her while making a sale of something ours. Thing is, it’ll be sold, we’ll be done and ready to move on. We’re ready not so much to wander, but to wait. We didn’t need a garage sale to reveal ourselves.

I can’t say I agree with all of Zimerman’s views (although I’d be pissed as all hell if customs destroyed my piano). But this recording is boss. The opening feels like a case study in picking a precise tempo, one a musician can manage. He plays slow enough that this listener feels like he hears every note in every phrase, along with inflections and subtle dynamics. Zimerman still keeps the music moving, though. I can’t emphasize how hard that is to do; there are plenty of good musicians who play accurately and with feeling that put their audience to sleep. When the piece becomes an exercise in virtuosity and intensity, not only is he up to the challenge, but his phrasing still remains impeccable. The ending is delicate and elegant and leaves you hungry for more, even after about 13 minutes of non-stop music.

Thanks to leadingtone for bringing this to my attention: he blogged the Gigue, which alone is a short masterpiece. Please give that a listen if you don’t have much time.

It goes without saying these recordings have been badly neglected: only a hundred visits to each part? The playing is bright and clear, but I’ll confess it is hard to remember the melodies involved after a first listen. These pieces have a complexity which requires virtuosity not unlike Schiff’s but may be masked by the sweet elegance of the tunes. I certainly don’t feel drowned in waves of melancholy listening to this, but I also don’t feel like I have to listen critically.

To say Heifetz was a rare virtuoso is like calling Einstein a genius. Heifetz is probably the greatest violinist ever recorded. You can hear that in the above link. He moves up and down scale-like passages with felicity; the notes sound clearly and distinctly and the dynamics are pure despite the speed of it all.

Another performance so good it’s almost ridiculous: Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D, 3rd Movement.  Here Heifetz takes a grand, majestic theme and milks it for all it is worth. His high notes don’t sound shrill or forced. The fluidity he achieves all throughout complements the softer tone and dynamics he uses at key moments. I imagine it is easy to be too exuberant with this piece and pound away at the main theme, leaving the rest as filler. Heifetz preserves the tension and drama that marks nearly all of Beethoven and makes it look like it was the simplest thing in the world.

I’m used to hearing this played a lot faster; I think it was Nelson Freire’s version I heard first. Horowitz takes this slowly, fusing what Wikipedia calls a “fluttering harp-like broken triad accompaniment” and a “spacious and languid melody” into a texture. The chords emerge delicately out of the accompaniment at the beginning; the piece becomes much more dramatic; things settle into a “relaxed flow,” but nothing is relaxed. The song seems a bit bittersweet to this listener, and the relaxed feeling one might have as a listener comes from trying to figure out what is happening with every note. Each note sounds distinct; relaxation is a consequence of exhaustion, the attempt to just appreciate brilliance.

If you’re pressed for time, the third movement is shorter than the rest. It is excited, a bit whimsical, and certainly not lacking in depth. The sheer amount of music in the first movement alone has me overwhelmed. That starts reverent, soft but full, and then goes on the harmonic journey to end all journeys – you can read about that more here. It feels like a landscape is being painted in front of you; in order to display a breadth of vision, it seems one’s own vision must be even broader.

The second movement contains an incredible amount of drama. It builds slowly and softly to powerful heights, and Brendel’s dynamics, while always good, feel exceptionally sharp here for this listener. It’s not too hard to take in every note and get a sense of what it is doing in the piece, but that doesn’t mean the piece is simple. It probably means a virtuosic piece of piano literature is being played at an amazing level. The theme opening the fourth movement sounds playful, but actually is part of scheme meant to explore a variety of wondrous colors. It ends the entirety of the piece grandly and triumphantly. With Schubert, I’m always wondering what it means to write exceptionally mature works of music. He seems to force the issue in a way few other composers do.

I’m a bit reluctant to recommend this, but I’ve been listening to it quite a bit recently. Certain motifs and parts where the music gets louder will make you think of bad movie music. I prefer saying the music is “meditative” and “challenging.” The theme has a pastoral effect, with distinct overtones of Faure, Durufle, Debussy. It takes several listens to get that full effect, though. I first had the music on too quiet, and given that it is a more quiet movement, it put me to sleep. Now I’m more focused on how one instrument or one section of the orchestra will get the theme and the music will rise, and how the piano is used to create a gentle cascade of notes where the music would start diminishing. There’s a lot to explore in this piece.

The first and fourth movements are rather vigorous (for the fourth movement, you have to wait until about the 2:50 mark for the pace to pick up). I’ve only listened to this piece once or twice in its entirety, so I don’t have much to say at the moment. The Amadeus Quartet is precise, attuned almost exactly to each other’s movements. They play with a tremendous energy that never seemingly goes slack. This is probably the first Mozart string quintet to which I’ve attempted to pay close attention, and what strikes me is how much “heft” it has. Usually when I describe rococo’s lightness (as opposed to baroque: I’m no expert on either), I point to Mozart, and emphasize the flightiness, the simplicity one might think trivial. Here, the third movement underscores a tension Mozart develops. It oscillates between the meditative and something more freely melodic. We are forced to attend to how various instruments sing fully in very different ways.

A note on the Amadeus Quartet, courtesy last.fm:

Because of their Jewish origin, violinists Norbert Brainin, Siegmund Nissel and violist Peter Schidlof were driven out of Vienna after Hitler’s Anschluss of 1938. Brainin and Schidlof met in a British internment camp; many Jewish refugees had the misfortune of being confined by the British as “enemy aliens” upon seeking refuge in the U.K. Brainin was released after a few months, but Schidlof remained in the camp, where he met Nissel. Finally Schidlof and Nissel were released, and the three of them were able to study with violin pedagogue Max Rostal, who taught them free of charge. It was through Rostal that they met cellist Martin Lovett, and in 1947 they formed the Brainin Quartet, which was renamed the Amadeus Quartet in 1948. The Amadeus was one of the most celebrated quartets of the 20th Century, and its members were awarded numerous honors, including:

The Order of the British Empire, presented by the Queen.
Doctorates from the Universities of London, York, and Caracas.
The highest of all German awards, the Grand Cross of merit.
The Austrian Cross of Honour for Arts and Sciences.
The quartet disbanded in 1987 upon the death of the violist Peter Schidlof, who was regarded as irreplaceable by the surviving members.

Hope you enjoy.